Hot Off the Presses

Militarizing Men: Gender, Conscription, and War in Post-Soviet Russia

By Maya Eichler, former Research Fellow, International Security Program/Women and Public Policy Program

Stanford University Press (Autumn 2011)

A state’s ability to maintain mandatory conscription and wage war rests on the idea that a “real man” is one who has served in the military. Yet masculinity has no inherent ties to militarism. The link between men and the military, argues Maya Eichler, must be produced and reproduced in order to fill the ranks, engage in combat, and mobilize the population behind war.

In the context of Russia’s post-communist transition and the Chechen wars, men’s militarization has been challenged and reinforced. Eichler uncovers the challenges by exploring widespread draft evasion and desertion, antidraft and anti-war activism led by soldiers’ mothers, and the general lack of popular support for the Chechen wars. However, the book also identifies channels through which militarized gender identities have been reproduced.

Eichler’s empirical and theoretical study of masculinities in international relations applies for the first time the concept of “militarized masculinity,” developed by feminist international relations scholars, to the case of Russia.

“This important and engaging piece of scholarship neatly fills a gap in our understanding of masculinity

and regime legitimation strategies. Eichler’s thoroughly researched, multi-methodological study reveals the contested nature of militarized masculinity and its political ramifications.”

—Valerie Sperling, Clark University

Carbon Coalitions: Business, Climate Politics, and the Rise of Emissions Trading

By Jonas Meckling, Research Fellow, Geopolitics of Energy Project

The MIT Press (October 2011)

Over the past decade, carbon trading has emerged as the industrialized world’s primary policy response to global climate change despite considerable controversy. With carbon markets worth $144 billion in 2009, carbon trading represents the largest manifestation of the trend toward market-based environmental governance. In Carbon Coalitions, Jonas Meckling presents the first comprehensive study on the rise of carbon trading and the role business played in making this policy instrument a central pillar of global climate governance.

“What we gain from reading this book is a clearer understanding of business influence—the author’s goal is not to explain climate change outcomes per se, but to explain the conditions under which business influence made a difference to those outcomes.”

—Virginia Haufler, Department of Government

and Politics, University of Maryland

Civilization: The West and the Rest

By Niall Ferguson, Member, Belfer Center, Board of Directors

The Penguin Press (November 2011)

In Civilization: The West and the Rest, Niall Ferguson argues that,beginning in the fifteenth century, the West developed sixpowerful new concepts that theRest lacked: competition, science,the rule of law, consumerism,modern medicine, and the workethic. These were the “killer applications” thatallowed the West to leap ahead of the Rest. Yetnow, he argues, the days of Western predominanceare numbered because the Rest havenow downloaded the six killer apps we oncemonopolized—while the West has literallylost faith in itself.

Political Demography: How Population Changes Are Reshaping International Security and National Politics

Edited by Jack A. Goldstone, Eric P. Kaufmann, former Research Fellow, Initiative on Religion in International Affairs/International Security Program, and Monica Duffy Toft, Associate Professor of Public Policy

Paradigm (November 2011)

The field of political demography—the politics of population change—is dramatically underrepresented in political science. At a time when demographic changes—aging in the rich world, youth bulges in the developing world, ethnic and religious shifts, migration, and urbanization— are waxing as never before, this neglect is especially glaring and starkly contrasts with the enormous interest coming from policymakers and the media. Demography is the most predictable of the social sciences: children born in the last five years will be the new workers, voters, soldiers, and potential insurgents of 2025 and the political elites of the 2050s. Whether in the West or the developing world, political scientists urgently need to understand the tectonics of demography in order to grasp the full context of today’s political developments.

Our Own Worst Enemy? Institutional Interests and the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Expertise

By Sharon Weiner; Belfer Center Studies in International Security

The MIT Press (October 2011)

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, many observers feared that terrorists and rogue states would obtain weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or knowledge about how to build them from the vast Soviet nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons complex.

The United States launched a major effort to prevent former Soviet WMD experts, suddenly without salaries, from peddling their secrets. In Our Own Worst Enemy, Sharon Weiner chronicles the design, implementation, and evolution of four U.S. programs that were central to this nonproliferation policy and assesses their successes and failures. Weiner examines the parlous state of the former Soviet nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons complex, the contentious domestic political debate within the United States, and most critically, the institutional interests and dynamics of the Defense, State, and Energy departments, which were charged with preventing the spread of WMD expertise. She explains why—despite unprecedented cooperation between the former Cold War adversaries—U.S. nonproliferation programs did not succeed at redirecting or converting to civilian uses significant parts of the former Soviet weapons complex.

“Our Own Worst Enemy? is a must-read for scholars, policymakers, and other readers with an interest in how government decisions get made and why it has been so hard to control the spread of knowledge about nuclear weapons.”

—Cindy Williams, principal research scientist,

Security Studies Program, MIT